So Sweetly
by teanotes
Summary: She smiles so sweetly that he nearly breaks. — LeoPiper


a/n: an AU timeline. i'm postponing the retrieving of Argo II supplies until the next day, so let's pretend the ship isn't too badly damaged.

* * *

Leo couldn't control himself around her.

Every now and then (when he knew for sure no one was looking) his gaze would carelessly wander. His eyes would devour every inch of her—from the sloppily tied hair bun, to the little beads of sweat on her exposed neck, then to her soft, tempting lips (that probably tasted like cinnamon).

_He is obsessed._

It's a fact he's known for a while. It's the reason why he absentmindedly sketches the pattern of her freckles onto the edge of his napkin during dinner and why her laugh is always the last thing on his mind before he sleeps. It's the reason why every time he makes her giggle with a cheesy joke, his heart leaps to his throat and he can barely breathe. It's also the reason why he feels sick to the stomach whenever she's with Jason because she's looking at him the way she _should_ look at Leo.

He feels disgusted with himself for feeling all these things because if it ever got out that _he was in love with Piper McLean_—well, he didn't like thinking about it because it's all kinds of wrong, _so_ _very_ _wrong_.

(But it felt so right.)

"Leo," she calls, her voice ringing like an angel. Gods, her _voice_—Leo would give anything to hear her say his name over and over again. He's been under her charmspeak before, but he believes that her normal voice is a million times more mesmerizing. "It's almost time for dinner; I think I'll go ahead to the pavilion. Didn't I tell you that I promised Jason I'd eat with him?"

_Not Jason again._ "Yeah, sure. Go ahead, beauty queen. Guess I'll just have to finish up all this _back-aching work_ by myself. No prob."

Despite his sarcastic remark, Piper gives him a sincere look (because she can read him better than anyone). "You know you come, Leo. You've been working on this ship for months, and we're finally leaving in a week or so. There's this thing called _resting_, you know."

She smiles so sweetly that he nearly breaks. Jason's face pops up in his mind, and he has to hide a scowl, because he has to remind himself that _she is Jason's_ _and Jason is hers._

He stares at her eyes—his breath gets taken away every time—and sees that she's still smiling. If he doesn't turn away right now, there's a huge chance he'd spout out something ridiculously embarrassing.

"Rest? Sorry, Pipes, not in my vocabulary." He chuckles softly, and can only hope it doesn't sound so forced.

He looks back to the little wires he has to carefully attach together and realizes that they're all tangled. He slowly restores each wire one by one, because if there's one thing he's learned from Hera/Juno/Tía Callida, it was that perfection is key.

Piper tries to read him again, and he can feel her colorful eyes staring hard at his face. Not for the first time, he wishes that his feelings for her would go away, because it just wasn't right. Not to Piper, not to Jason, and _definitely_ not to him.

"Alright. But if you change your mind, you're always welcome to join us, _Repair Boy_."

Leo masks an easy smile and throws out a cheesy reply that makes her roll her eyes. He pushes her gently by the shoulders toward the direction of the pavilion—to _Jason_—and says that he'll go catch up with them later, though he never would.

She leaves without a second glance, and his heart tears just a little bit more.

* * *

After an hour, he makes a silly mistake with the wires he was working on (definitely not because he was thinking of _her_) and has to go back to his cabin to grab the extras. On the way, he spots Piper and Jason sitting very close on the porch of Zeus's cabin, holding hands under the stars and talking about something that doesn't include Leo.

He has to duck behind a few bushes in order not to be seen.

_Always _welcome? What a lie.

* * *

They're on the Argo II now, and Leo is _supposed_ to be too busy focusing on steering the ship to the Roman camp to notice how beautiful Piper looks, but he does anyway, because she's Piper and he is smitten.

She's wearing a Hello Kitty shirt that he knows she's only wearing to look ironic, but he really likes the casual jeans she wears than the dresses and whatever that all the other Aphrodite girls do. She looks, to put it bluntly, not _too_ out of his league. She still looks as pretty as ever, but it makes Leo so happy that he might have a chance that it makes him hide an involuntary smile (it might've turned out as a grimace because Hedge then questions if what Leo had eaten that morning was safe).

She starts to frown and he knows immediately what she's thinking about—_Jason_ (it's always Jason).

And, when the strange limbless statue appears in front of Annabeth, all Leo notices is that Piper's eyes are slightly swollen. When the statue starts yelling, Leo starts to feel a growing resentment towards a certain son of the sky god, because no one makes Piper McLean sad and gets away with it.

(Because she's much more important than a whole city of Romans that want to implode his ship. Much more.)

* * *

Leo shouldn't be happy—he had just blown up his ship (but not really), his best friend is in a brick-inducing coma, and now the seven of them, plus Hedge, is on the run from rapid Roman warriors out for their lives—but he was, and it was all because of one thing:

Piper doesn't blame him.

He had to swear to Annabeth and the others many times that he was not the one to blow up the ship, (even if he was seen doing it, and he remembers what he did, he's pretty sure he _didn't do it_) and Percy Jackson's glare was seriously scare-worthy.

But Piper doesn't blame him, and it makes him so glad that he has a friend as great as her. (Leo figures that the title "friend" is much more sacred than anyone makes it out to be, so he doesn't understand why he's heard so many boys his age complain about being in a "friend-zone". Isn't being friends with the one you like just as important?)

Leo feels so inflated that he finds some spare time in his on-to-save-the-world schedule to make her something special. He's stumped as what to give her because, if he hadn't made it more obvious today than any other day, he was _not_ good with people.

(At times like this, he wishes he could live in a world where everything could be fixed with a couple twists of a screwdriver and everything would just fall into place.)

He tries his first idea and it actually comes out okay. He polishes it and does some finishing touches. By the time his little project is complete, it's about one in the morning and everyone is in bed (most likely; you never know with these guys).

He tries to go to sleep, but he's too excited about her reaction to the present that Leo decides that maybe he'd just leave it on her doorstep or table or something for her to find later tomorrow.

He starts to walk down the halls of the ship, and coincidentally passes Jason's door which is slightly ajar. He guesses it wouldn't hurt to check up on him—make sure he isn't being smothered by his pillow or something—and he sees that Jason's still completely knocked out. Leo feels terribly guilty, because if he hadn't blown up the ship, he would still be awake.

"Sorry, man," Leo murmurs. He doesn't do anything else; he doesn't even step in the room. He leaves and tries to push away the guilt slowly eating away at his insides because he's _still_ in love with his best friend who is his _other_ best friend's _girlfriend_.

(Gods, as if his life wasn't messed up already…)

Before he knows it, he's already in front of Piper's room. He finds out that it's unlocked and slips in (respecting privacy is another social trait he needs to work on). The place itself doesn't really scream Piper—all the kids barely personalized their rooms except for Leo, whose room is just another mini workshop plus a bed. He notices that the air conditioning is on, and it's really cold and Leo wonders why she chose such a low temperature.

Through the dark, he can spot Piper fast asleep, and he almost sighs in relief because it doesn't look like she's having a nightmare (_everyone's_ been having those lately).

He places the gift that was hastily wrapped with newspaper on her side table. He meant to only drop off the present and leave as fast as he came, but something makes him stay longer than he needs to.

He feels disgusted at himself again because now he's stooped so low as to sneak into her room and watch her sleep (like Cedric Diggory, or was it Edward Cullen?), but there's definitely something hypnotizing about the way she breathes and the way her eyelashes look so long and pretty and the way she looks years younger in her sleep.

Then he feels it. He wants to kiss her.

He restrains the groan coming out of his mouth because all his feels are so messed up. Like being deeply in love with a cousin or sister. His friendship with Piper—well, that was just it. A friendship. Even before Jason had come along, back at the Wilderness school, it was just the two of them.

Maybe Piper still doesn't remember it, because for a time, he didn't either, but what he could recall was memories of unadulterated jokes and loads of laughs together. Yet, they were so blurry that Leo doesn't even know if they happened or not, but if they were, then there was a time where Leo's chances with Piper hadn't been so scarce.

Leo wants to get out of the room already (the feelings are suffocating him), and he feels so overwhelmed that he just wants to run away. And he almost does, until;

"_Leo?_"

He nearly has a heart attack (this night is turning downhill so fast, he really can't catch up). He turns and sees Piper sitting up from her bed, rubbing her eyes and looking so innocent.

"Is that you?"

He doesn't want to say anything and he wants to hide, maybe she'd just ignore him and go back to sleep.

But he's not in control of himself anymore, so the not-Leo says, "Yeah. Sorry if I woke you."

There's a beat of silence, and he sees that she's staring at him right through the darkness of her bedroom. She's trying to figure out what his late night appearance means, and maybe she starts understanding because her kaleidoscope colored eyes start to widen and her hands begin to clench her comforter.

Leo's made a mistake, and now he's waiting for her to start yelling—for Hedge, for Annabeth, for _anyone_—to come save her from the not-Leo that's trying to do play something.

She never does.

When she starts to speak, he is caught off guard again because she's calm and her voice isn't wavering one bit like he thought it would.

"Tell me why you're here."

_Great_. She's charmspeaking him because she doesn't trust this not-Leo and he can't control himself from telling her.

"To give you something," He answers truthfully.

"To give…" Her voice dies out.

He barely notices the blush rising from her neck, and when he does, he starts flushing, too. He's probably insinuating something inappropriate, and he hopes she knows he doesn't roll like that.

"No!" Leo exclaims as he runs his hand through his hair. "I don't mean it like—_gods_, I snuck down here to give you a present!"

"What?"

He quiets down and rubs the back of his neck. "You never doubted me—about the ship-blowing up thing, I mean."

Her eyes flicker from her side table and back to Leo, but he can still see the red tint on her cheeks and she looks so cute flustered that he lets out a short laugh.

She crosses her arms and huffs. "Not funny, Valdez. You could've given me an aneurism, for Zeus's sake!"

Leo stops chuckling and shrugs—she's not too upset, still skeptic, he guessed, but not upset.

Piper sits up properly on her bed and scoots a little to the side. She pats her bed and he knows she's gesturing for him to sit next to her. He's about to decline, but not-Leo betrays him again and complies.

They look at each other for a while, eyes locking and all. Leo can feel his heart beating at an erratic rate, and he tries his best to stop from starting a fire on the spot, because they're _so close _and he doesn't know how to react.

She asks first. "Is there something wrong, Leo?"

There's a long pause and Leo doesn't say anything. He guesses it makes Piper all the more riled up because he can feel her getting angrier.

"Leo, I _know_ there's something wrong with you, because no one just casually strolls in someone's bedroom at the middle of the night on a flying ship without any good reason! And don't give me that gift crap, because you know you could've just given that to me tomorrow! For gods' sakes, why can't you tell me?"

Leo can only smile softly. He's going to regret coming here.

"What?" She asks again, frustrated. "No sassy comebacks? Annoying puns? Nothing? Okay, I knew you were acting really acting weird before, but this is just ridiculous. Are you sure you don't want me to call anyone else, because you're really—"

And that's when he kisses her.

Like, a real kiss. Not one that he had daydreamed about before—nothing smoky or graceful like he'd imagined. It's rough and unclean, and he's burning up once more.

Piper draws back, like he knew she would. "L-Leo, I—_What was_—"

"I'm sorry, just, let me do this one time," he whispers. "Ignore me for the rest of the quest—for your _life_, even, just let me do this once more before I die. _Please_."

He doesn't wait for her answer (he doesn't want to hear it) and leans in for the last time. She really does take like cinnamon, he takes note. He feels his blood pressure rise and he really doesn't understand why she isn't flailing and screeching and just upright beating him to the ground yet.

It feels so good, and he doesn't care if it's wrong anymore, because what he's feeling right now isn't wrong to him at all—it's pure bliss.

(He doesn't know if it's been five years since he came into her room or eight minutes.)

They're panting now, and are face to face. Leo doesn't remember when he had crawled on top of her and when her pajamas became so crumpled.

"I get it now," she breathes. He can feel her breath on him, and somehow the room isn't as cold as it was before. He wonders if it really was cool at all.

"Yeah" is all he says, because there's really nothing at all in his head anymore. Just a huge cloud of smoke and Piper McLean.

He could imagine the gears rolling and steaming in her mind easily, because he was pretty sure his mind was doing the same.

"But Jason—" She says, suddenly frantic. "_Jason_—"

That's when he jumps off her bed faster than she can blink. He doesn't want any part of this anymore, and wishes that there could be a reset button for life, like in video games and on computers. He'd rather face Gaea and all her evil little minions (maybe even Kronos) than look at the one girl he'd never be able to be with. That'd be much less painful.

He walks out the door and doesn't even turn around when she calls out his name, because he knows that nothing good would come out of a talk like that, and he just wants to forget about The Kiss and his one-sided longing.

His mother, Tía Callida, Gaea—Piper was just another female in his life that would leave a rotten stain on the burnt canvas of Leo Valdez.

"Girls suck," he concludes, his bare feet padding on the cold floors of the Argo II. He had forgotten to wear shoes in his rush to Piper's room, but oddly enough, he doesn't feel cold at all. It still feels like he's been stuffed in an oven, his lips as hot as coal.

* * *

Leo decides later that he had acted completely on impulse.

Maybe it was because he wanted her so badly it hurt, or maybe because she was there and he was there and it just _fit_, or maybe because he was so _desperately_ in love that he _had_ to do it.

Now he's panting on his bed, completely alone and unsure. He just wants everything to go back to the way it was before; when he was able to crawl on his mother's lap and she would sing him a lullaby to make him sleep, and he _would_ because he knew he was safe in her arms.

(He always _was_.)

* * *

Piper would show up with swollen lips and a new bracelet the next morning at breakfast. And Jason, now finally awake, would sit next to her and ask where she had got it (the swollen lips or the bracelet, you would never know).

"A gift," She'll reply simply. No one would question anything further at that point because Annabeth will start to bag on Percy for eating pizza for breakfast and everyone will be caught up in all the action.

But not Leo, because his eyes would still be glued to Piper's face and she'll feel it, too, but won't do anything except for the sad smile she'll send him when no one's looking.

_She smiles so sweetly that his heart is breaking, and he's so broken that he starts aching._

Leo will smile back, and it will be the first real smile he's shown in a while.


End file.
